The Big Brass Ring (1999) was a very earl project, done before I was writing reviews. I wish I had captured my thoughts from the original viewing. Scoopy write a lengthy review
where he commented that it was talky and had no pace, but that he liked it because it was so literate. The screenplay was an adaptation of an Orson Welles script. It was moved from Africa and the distant past to a Missouri governor's race at the turn of the century. Two independents are well in the lead. One of them has a secret that could cost him the election, and the man who raised him, and participated in the event that could cost him everything surfaces, and his secret is in danger of being made public.

The candidate is played by WIlliam Hurt. Irčne Jacob plays a reporter trying to make a name for herself at her station, whom the old man leaks the secret too. She shows breasts and buns in an after sex scene with Hurt. We have complete nudity from Sara Melson mostly shown in a deleted scene, and two naked strippers playing backgammon show breasts and bush. IMDb readers have this at 5.3 of 10. Many Welles scholars complained that it was not very Welles-like. In fact, the story was very Welles-like, and the writers included many Welles homages, and even used some Welles camera angles. In the commentary, they belabor the point that they were paying homage to Welles the writer, not Welles the director. George Hickenlooper (director/co-writer) and Oja Kodar (co-writer) obviously stuffed every nook and cranny of this film with symbolism, literary devices, verbatim elements from the Welles script, and many homages to Welles. For me, they created a masterpiece that is a long, boring watch. I don't necessarily need pace in a story, but, absent pace, I need to be able to relate strongly to one of the characters, and found nobody in the film to supply that need. This is a C. If you like slow paced, talky literate films, you might enjoy this one.

OTHER CRAP:

• Tony bounces back in 'Sopranos' season finale ... fans will now have to wait 18 months for the final ten episodes of the series.
• Xtina's deep throat shirt, now with king-fu grip and partial see-through action
• British Telecom puts block on child porn sites. The decision will lead to the first mass censorship of the internet in a Western democracy. Prior to this, blocking internet sites has been restricted to repressive regimes throughout the world. "But many in the field of child protection believe that the explosion of paedophile sites justifies the crackdown."
• Bone Up On Shakespeare: A Study Guide to the Complete Porno Films of the Bard of Avon
• 'Avenue Q' wins best book, best score at the Tonys.
• Hef's teammates celebrate their 50th anniversary with a party
• As usual, the top story in Norway is something that almost happened.
• Italian lawmakers lay out strict guidelines for pizza-making.
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, as reviewed by The Filthy Critic
• Weekly World News has a swimsuit issue?
• According to scientist, satellite images 'show Atlantis' - in southern Spain!. This is not a Weekly World News article, but a legit story from BBC.
• Your diet book - South Beach or Leviticus? New Christian diet plan asks "what would Jesus eat?"
• Did a powerful Mexican governor stage an assassination attempt?
• Cameron Diaz dumps Timberlake
• FilmJerk.com's Early Report for June 6, 2004
• Who Were Those Crash Test Dummies?
• Eminem and his band mooned the crowd during their performance at the MTV Movie Awards last night.
• Iraqis Paying 5 Cents a Gallon for Gas, thanks to the US taxpayer.
• Say it ain't so. Hollywood superstar Ben Affleck is taking a year-long break from making movies, after the trauma of his split from Jennifer Lopez.
• Boy killed because he offered to buy a girl a Slurpee.
• Potter opens with $92 million.
  • Although that broke the all-time record for a June opening weekend by a country mile (previous record: $62 million), it represented a surprising decline compared to the opening weekends of Shrek 2 and Spiderman. After an incredible Friday, people speculated that Potter might break Spiderman's all-time opening weekend record of $114 million.
  • Potter also weakened relative to Shrek 2 throughout the current weekend (Potter's first, Shrek's third). On Friday, Potter beat the green ogre 4-1, but Saturday and Sunday leveled off at 2-1.
  • 
• Ay-y-y-y. Da Fonz writes and narrates a series of children's audio books.
• Global simulation workshop - how would you run the world?
• USS Jimmy Carter, the future of submarines. No weapons, but it does include a strong anti-rabbit defense system. For some reason it can't seem to sail through the Panama Canal.
• SCTV comes to DVD. Note: there is a factual error in the article. Rick Moranis was not in the original SCTV cast. He came along quite a bit later (In Season Three - four years after the first show aired). The first group was: John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Catherine O'Hara, Andrea Martin, Harold Ramis, and Dave Thomas as The Beaver. (Ramis is the one they missed)
• Here is the Episode Guide for Season 1, including Show 1 of SCTV

Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the ones above, since it's sorta in real time.

Click here to submit a URL for Other Crap

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

• The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
• If there is a white asterisk, it means that there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Junior or Brainscan, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Words from Scoop.

.avi's from Shiloh.

.wmv files made by Scoop from Shiloh's .avi's.

Metroland

See Tuna's section for many still captures

• Elsa Zylberstein (.avi) (.wmv)

• Emily Watson (.avi) (.wmv)

• Amanda Ryan. (.avi) (.wmv)

Amy Brenneman

• Your Friends and Neighbors (.avi) (.wmv)

• NYPD Blue (.avi) (.wmv)

Perhaps these tips will help if you have trouble with the codecs for these movies:

Shiloh says:

FYI when I hypercam vids to make the file size smaller I use DivX MPEG-4 Fast-Motion for the video compressor, then I use virtualdub to compress the audio. The properties for the vids says the video codec:  DivX Decoder Filter & audio codec:  Morgan Stream Switcher which I'm not familiar with. When I compress the audio with virtualdub I use MPEG Layer-3.  A friend of mine told me about compressing the audio about (6) mos. ago. Like I said previously, only been capping for a year & a half & I'm no expert. Hopefully this info will help members with the proper codecs for my vids.

 

When I cap big brother's I use hypercam mostly & sdp & asfrecorder if the set up allows me. I stopped using camtasia cause the file sizes were always too big, could never figure out the process, over my head lol, plus it cost too much to buy in my opinion.

A reader says:

You mentioned that some users were having trouble with the videos on your site. There is a tool designed to determine what codec is needed for a video. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ Hope this is useful to you or your users.

Scoop says:

I made the .wmv versions of each video. The codecs for these: Windows Video V8, Windows Audio 9. The upside of these is that you know the codecs, and they'll play in the Windows Media Player. The downside is that they are slightly larger, and slightly lower quality.

• Amber Smith (a divx clip)

• Adult actress Felony. Mostly just toplessness, but brief views of the other B's are found in the pseudo sex .wmvs.
  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

• Felony .wmvs (1, 2, 3)

  
  

• Gina Ryder, another adult actress "slumming it" on Skinemax. Mostly robo-hooters here, plus a little bit of bum these two pseudo-sex scenes.
  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

• Gina Ryder .wmvs (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

  
  

• Holly Sampson probably better known to Skinemax views as the new "Emmanuelle". Here she is proudly showing off all 3 B's
  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

• Holly Sampson (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

  
  

"Trapped"
You had to suspend belief when watching Trapped but we do see Charlize Theron in her underwear with pokies to match. Courtney Love is also in her underwear, but there is nothing unusual in this.

• Charlize Theron (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Courtney Love (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

"Fly Fishing"
Lots of nice nakedness in the British movie Fly Fishing by Frances Barber and Kate Ashfield, who play a mother and daughter both unknowingly bedding the same man.

• Frances Barber (1, 2, 3)
• Kate Ashfield (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

"Swimfan"
No nudity in the teen flick Swimfan. However, Erika Christensen is down to her underwear and Shiri Appleby shows some pokies.

• Erika Christensen (1, 2, 3)
• Shiri Appleby (1, 2)

"Shooting Stars"
Julianne Christie shows some brief nipple when she goes skinny dipping and another actress takes her blouse off as she auditions for a movie.

• Julianne Christie (1, 2)
• Unknown

"One Way Out"
Everything but bush is shown by Guylain St-Onge in One Way Out.

• Guylain St-Onge (1, 2, 3, 4)

"Erotic Tales - Dream a Little Dream of Me"
The Erotic Tales series of short movies has some excellent naked ladies and Dream a Little Dream of Me is no exception. Kristieanne Travers is some bloke's naked dream and Vivi Koka is his non-nude real-life wife.

• Kristieanne Travers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Vivi Koka

"The Cat's Meow"
We see a topless Chiara Schoras in The Cat's Meow and a near-naked Claudia Harrison.

• Chiara Schoras
• Claudia Harrison (1, 2)

"Play It As It Lays"
Finishing with an oldie, We see some pokies by Tuesday Weld, and maybe a bit more, in Play It As It Lays.

• Tuesday Weld

• The beautiful Spanish actress Paz Vega goes topless. (1, 2, 3, 4)

• Natalia Verbeke briefly bares all 3 B's (1, 2, 3)

Next up, Carla Hidalgo goes topless in scenes from her first movie, "Brácula. Condemor II" (1997).

• Carla Hidalgo (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)